River Flows and Connectivity

Science to practice: Advances in riverbank form and vegetation monitoring inform environmental flow decisions

The Goulburn River and Northern Victorian Tributaries (GRANT) Area-scale Project team, presented by partners from Streamology and Goulburn Broken Catchment Management Authority, describe the evolution of drone-based riverbank monitoring and how it has strengthened the evidence base for environmental flow management.

Basin-Scale Reflection: Hydrology

Flows, fish and connectivity

This talk will explore work undertaken through Flow-MER examining basin-scale flow regimes and hydrological connectivity. This will set the context for a discussion about fish outcomes from the use of environmental water over nine survey years (2014–23). Current findings and learnings about flows, fish and connectivity from the Basin-scale evaluation will also be shared.

Getting the Biggest Bang for Your Duck:

The influence of hydrology on trophic dynamics and resource provision in a managed wetland to inform optimal water management.

When all else fails, just go with the flow: unintended lessons from an experiment in the Goulburn River

Experiments to augment channel retentiveness can increase detritus and dependent organisms and we attempted such an experiment in the Lower Goulburn River. Using established methods we increased retention at four sites by adding woody structure to treatment areas, but not control areas. Over 24 months, the experimental areas were sampled five times at baseflow (1000 ML / day).

Methods to improve in-channel habitat and complement environmental flows